A skeptical left-liberal's blog, including skepticism about left-liberalism, but even more about other issues of politics. A skeptical look at Gnu Atheism, religion, social sciences, more. And me? I am who I am... more later...

September 08, 2011

50-50 chance of double-dip recession?

So says David Leonhardt, with this "tell" that should further inspire true progressives to jump off the sinking Obama ship and look at the Green Party.

Perhaps the best sign of how difficult it is to know the economy’s direction is that, as a group, the nation’s professional forecasters have failed to predict all the recessions since the 1970s, according to data kept by the Philadelphia Fed. In the last 30 years, the average probability they put on the economy lapsing into recession has never risen above 50 percent — until the economy was already in a recession.

The forecasters, on Wall Street and elsewhere, are not blind to economic change; they just tend to underestimate its severity.

Given that Team Obama is listening to those professional forecasters, and even has many of them ensconced inside the White House, that's why he "doesn't feel your pain." Neither your short-term pain over a looming second dip, nor your and my longer-term pain of wondering when our current job will be downsized or outsourced.